2014 Christmas Home Tour: In The Kitchen

Happy Monday! As promised, I'm bringing you the second part of my Christmas home tour today.

C'mon in to the kitchen!

 

 

The table is set for Christmas breakfast.....which is really kind of funny. We have never sat down as a family for a big Christmas breakfast....ever! With celebrating our own family Christmas at home and then preparing to make the rounds to both Grandparents', we usually wind up having a quick Christmas cookie or maybe something leftover from our Christmas Eve gathering. But I wanted to set a pretty table for you today.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Over the last couple years I have fallen in love with these Better Homes & Gardens Christmas dishes from WalMart. Each year I've collected a few more pieces. This is the first year that, mixed in with my other china, I have enough to set a whole table. There are several different Christmas-y scenes on the salad plates.

 



 

 

 

 

I have a secret about my "tablecloth." I actually used rolls of Christmas wrapping paper to create my own tablecloth. Who has the money for those pricey ones that you only use once a year? It was a simple project.....well, except for having to wield an unruly roll of paper....and that whole "measure twice, cut once" thing. But really, I just rolled the paper out, taped it down in a couple spots to hold it secure while I traced around the oval shape of my table, and then cut it out. I even made a runner for my table. I loved the script paper I found in the Target Spot.

 

 

For my centerpiece, I used these fun red house lanterns that I got for 80% off at Target after Christmas last year. I surrounded them with some faux greenery and pinecones. Cute!

 

 

 The shelf above our table doesn't look that much different than last year. But a new addition is the platter that is part of the BH&G dishes.

My kitchen cart even got a quick little holiday makeover!

 

 

 

And it's all against the background of our December calendar on the chalkboard wall.

 

 

 

Over on the other side of the kitchen there are some Christmas touches as well....fresh and faux greenery mixed with some ironstone and pretty dishes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I hope you enjoyed my little tour today. If you missed it, you can also check out Part 1 of this year's Christmas home tour. And last year's home tour is HERE.

 

Thanks for stopping by and Merry Christmas!



A Quick Christmas Wreath Re-Do

Last year I posted about how one of our traditions is to put up Christmas lights inside and outside the house. Well, I'm just going to be honest here folks.....unfortunately it ain't happening this year. <sad face>  With the combination of a late Thanksgiving, lots of family birthdays, a wedding, and sick kids home from school, the time has gotten away from me.

I did manage to get a Christmas wreath put up on the door. I love this frosted berry wreath. I've had it for a few years and with the lighted garland and mini trees that I usually put out on the porch it looks fine. But all by itself it looks a little lonely and said, don't you think?

 

 

 

The other day when I was supposed to be Christmas shopping at Target, I found this cute Christmas sign. I knew I could do something with it, so I brought it home. This was the perfect project.

 

 

 

 

I gathered together my wreath, the sign, and some burlap ribbon I already had at home.

 

 

 

 

Ten minutes later, my wreath was transformed into this.....

 

 

 

 

A wreath that can stand alone on the door.







2014 Christmas Home Tour: The Mudroom And Living Room

Greetings and welcome to the first part of my Christmas home tour!  I took so many photos that I decided to divide up my tour. Today we'll look at the mudroom and living room and next week I'll show you the kitchen.

 

If you're here for the first time...welcome!

I'm so excited to be joining Jennifer Rizzo's Holiday House Walk link party. Did you see all the amazing homes in last week's House Walk? Oh my! Such inspiration! Make sure to take a look at all the other amazing home tours that are being linked up this week.

Now normally I would off you a hot beverage when you arrive. And today....everyone gets a squirt of hand sanitizer on the way out as well. Ha! Yep, I have sick kiddos at home this week. Fever, stuffy noses, coughing.....blech! Seems that there is a bug going around their whole school district. Having the kids home made my little Christmas photo shoot a bit of a challenge as well. I'm quite sure you didn't want to see kids bundled up on the couch or thermometers and medication taking up room on the kitchen counter. But I did my best!

So let's start with our mudroom!

 

 

I love these little trees that I purchased at Target a couple years ago. I use them differently each year. This time I "planted" one in an old galvanized bucket and dressed it up with some burlap and ribbon. You'll see another one in my kitchen in the second part of my tour.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Let's move into the living room. I love tradition and I use most of my decorations from year to year in different ways, with maybe something new thrown in. This year I used a lot of the ironstone that I've accumulated over the last few months.

 

I also generously used fresh greens from our back yard. I MAY have gone a little overboard....NAH!

 

As much as I enjoy seeing other homes decorated with non-traditional colors or neutrals, I love to decorate with the traditional colors. I always find myself drawn to some black and white with pops of red, real or faux greenery, and a little bit of sparkle as well.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 







 

 

Our mantel and hearth are pretty much the same as last year. I did add a couple little ironstone syrup pitchers with some pine.

 

 



 

 

 

 

I also added these little chalkboard tags with our names to our stockings. You may remember seeing them on my Thanksgiving table as name cards. After Thanksgiving they quickly made their way over to the stockings. I didn't even have to rewrite our names!

 



 

 

 

Some more pine and ironstone.

 



 







 

 

 

 

And our tree....covered with ornaments that mean so much to us because of the memories they hold.

 

 

 

 

 

So that's it for this part of the tour. Join me next week for a peek at my Christmas kitchen.

 

You can click HERE for a look at my Christmas tour from last year too.

Christmas Traditions At Our House: The Lights

Another Christmas tradition at our house is putting up Christmas lights, both outside and inside.

I haven't shown you our back door all decked out for Christmas yet, have I? 

This is the door that guests enter when they come to our house, so it gets the most attention with the decorating. I like the look of classic white lights. I think decorating the outside of your house at Christmas sets a festive Christmas mood before people even enter your house. It's very warm and welcoming.

I use lights inside too. For years I've hung lighted garland around the French doors in our living room. What is it about lights at Christmas? The soft glow is just kind of relaxing, I guess.

I didn't realize the lights inside were such a tradition until last year. I happen to be one of those people who are so excited to put up the lights each year that I usually don't think to check and see if the lights are working before I put them up. That's what happened last year. (And this year too. But we don't really need to talk about how 3/4 of my outdoor lights had to be redone because they didn't work. Oy!) Anywho.....last year, the garlands for around the doors didn't work. And I had kind of procrastinated in putting them up anyways so there was really no time to go out and get new ones.

My son was watching me go through all this and when I told them I just wasn't going to put them up for that year he said, "You HAVE to Mom! It's tradition!"

I had no idea it meant so much to him. So I scrounged around in all my decorations and found one good strand of garland with lights and was able to put it across the mantel (which, by the way, I didn't like nearly as much.) And I promised my son that I would make sure we had new lights for around the doors for this year.

I learned a lesson. What my kids see as a tradition may be different than what I consider to be one. If you're struggling with trying to do so much during this season, maybe it would be a good idea to sit your family down and ask each person what tradition is most important to them and do your best to accomplish that. You can spend your energy doing the things that are most important to your family and not stress out about everything else that you just thought was important.

And hopefully next year I will finally learn my lesson about testing the lights before I put them up. But I wouldn't count on it!

Christmas Traditions At Our House: Almond Toffee

Good Monday morning everyone!

It's time for another one of our family's Christmas traditions. And this one just happened to take place over the weekend.

For about the last eight years, we've made Almond Toffee to give away to teachers, bus drivers, neighbors, friends, and family. (And we eat a little bit ourselves too!)

Saturday was the perfect day to stay home and make it because this is what it looked like outside.

 The recipe we use is from marilynmoll.com and you can find it HERE.

This "project" is really Hubster's thing. And it really is a project....seven batches were made this year. He did all the actual candy-making. I was in charge of the chocolate and almond coating. Then, he broke up all the toffee into peices and I packaged it all up. It definitely was a team effort.

Hubster's printout of the recipe is rather tattered, stained and scribbled upon. But after making it so many times, he doesn't even refer to the recipe any more.



Our house always smells heavenly when the toffee is being made.

After the  toffee cools a bit melted chocolate is spread on each side and ground almonds are spread on top.

And.....the finished product. It really is delicious and makes a nice hostess or teacher gift.

The kids love passing it out to all their teachers.

So if you're looking for something different to make this year, try some Almond Toffee!

You can read about our other Christmas Tradition too!

The Music

The Tree

The Decorations